Public TV volunteers to do kidvid duties for commercial broadcasters

Public TV has endorsed an FCC proposal that TV stations be allowed to satisfy their
children's TV obligations by sponsoring programs on other channels.

But instead of expecting broadcasters to support educationally valuable kidvid
separately in each market, the commission should be open to innovative multi-market
arrangements, including support of national shows for PBS, according to joint comments
filed Oct. 16 by PBS and America's Public Television Stations.

CPB separately endorsed the "sponsorship" proposal that public TV stations
could serve as "host" for programs sponsored by commercial broadcasters. And FCC
Chairman Reed Hundt has spoken frequently in favor of the sponsorship idea.

But other parties on both sides of the kidvid issue are cool to sponsorship. Children's
TV activist Peggy Charren says that letting commercial broadcasters pay public TV to carry
educational kidvid would mean that there probably would be just one channel of it
available at any given moment. And Charren's arch-foes, the National Association of
Broadcasters, oppose kidvid rules altogether, asserting that they're both unnecessary and
unconstitutional.

APTS/PBS urged the commission to be flexible in enforcing the sponsorship option. A
commercial network, for instance, might propose to contribute funds to a PBS Children's
Programming Fund on behalf of its affiliates, the comments said. The streamlined
arrangement would automatically assure that the money would go to new educational kidvid
productions, which would be aired widely.

The important thing is to allow deals "that encompass enough markets to assure the
aggregation of sufficient resources to finance the production of educationally effective
children's programming," APTS/PBS commented.

Funds have to be aggregated because the programs are expensive to make, they said.
Forty episodes of Wishbone cost $20 million to make; 65 of Bill Nye the Science
Guy come for $11 million; and 40 of Puzzle Place require $10.3 million.

Educationally effective kidvid costs an average of $250,000 an hour to make, according
to a Bortz & Co. study cited in the filing. Licensing a daily strip of 65 hour-long
shows would cost a commercial station $28,600 to $162,110 a year.

In some markets and dayparts, that cost of licensing a national production would exceed
what the station gained by not having to air two hours of educational kidvid a week,
APTS/PBS told the FCC.

The commission asked commenters to estimate a station's "opportunity cost" of
educational kidvid--the additional revenue that a station would earn by not having to
carry educational kidvid. APTS/PBS submitted a Bortz estimate that this amount would range
from $16,000 to $383,000 a year for two hours of programming a week.

APTS/PBS also proposed several provisions to make sure that sponsorship would achieve
the objective of increasing broadcasts of educational kidvid. For the broadcaster to take
credit, APTS/PBS proposed, the sponsored programs:

would have to actually air in the broadcaster's home market (cable transmissions
wouldn't count),

would have to represent an increase in the broadcaster's spending on
"educationally effective children's programming,"

would preferably be new productions, in order to add to the stock of programs available
in the marketplace, and

would have to meet children's "educational and informational needs," as the
FCC evaluates them.

The rules should permit public TV stations as well as commercial ones to meet their
obligations by sponsoring programs on other local channels, APTS/PBS added.

The FCC also should find a way to certify certain arrangements in advance so that
broadcasters can be sure that it will accept them as adequate, the papers advised.

Implementing 1990 legislation

The comments were filed in an FCC proceeding that follows up on the Children's
Television Act of 1990, which called for rules requiring TV stations to serve "the
educational and informational needs of children" through its overall schedule and
through "programming specifically designed to serve such needs."

In weighing a station's performance at license renewal time, the act also authorized
the FCC to consider any children's educational programs that a station sponsors, even if
the shows are aired on another station. In April, the commission asked for comments on
rules to implement this kind of "program sponsorship."

Specifically, the commission suggested a "3-2-1" rule. A station wouldn't be
allowed to satisfy its entire educational kidvid obligation by hiring it out, but assuming
that the FCC sets the obligation at 3 hours a week (for example), the broadcaster could
sponsor 2 hours on another channel and air 1 hour itself. The formula might also turn out
to be 5-4-1, or 100%-70%-30% or some other breakdown, the FCC said.

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